I spent a fair amount of time High-Sec exploring with Demonic Pygmy over the past weekend. I’ve tweaked the fitting a little and have started flying with a Mobile Depot in the hold so I can swap out resist amplifiers and if I chance across a Ghost Site I’ve got a Relic Analyzer in the hold as well.

I got pretty lucky over the weekend and got a number of escalations and rare Rat spawns which netted me some lovely loot. Ran two DED 5/10 Angel’s Red Light District’s and each dropped a Cynabal BPC, got a number of Centii, Domination and Gistum Modules, managed to score a Rogue Drone 46-X Nexus Chip from a Sentient spawn in a Drone Assembly and got a Mid-grade Ascendancy Delta BPC from a Lesser Angel Covert Research Facility – solid luck and much fun!

Will have to wait and see what the change in Alliance brings, I think we’re gaining a couple of Wardecs, so I may have to put the High-Sec exploration on hold for a bit while that all pans out.

I did not get any escalations from the Cosmic Anomaly sites nor any Domination/Sentient ship spawns but I did score a few Gistum C-Type Deadspace Modules from the DED sites which made for a profitable evening and has me looking forward to getting out there again!

I had a couple of the 18th Tier OPE’s and a number of the lesser ones but I wasn’t sure what to do with them. All it took was a quick ask in our Alliance/Corp channels and I had set my destination for the nearest CONCORD Station… the higher Tier OPE’s are solid ISK, the 18th Tier OPE is worth $43,200,000.00! The lesser ones not so much but it all adds up.

After dropping off the OPE’s and selling off some of the loot I’ve got over the last couple of days of High-Sec exploration Demonic Pygmy has paid for herself and then some so I treated her to some upgrades and with her being strictly a High-Sec boat, one that I won’t fly during a War-dec, I felt the upgrades are worth the risks she takes.

I already had two of the Republic Fleet Gyrostabilizers so used those and picked up a third which boost the DPS up nicely, added a Pith X-Type Explosive Deflection Field which kicks the Explosive Resistance to 82% and upgraded the third Shield Extender to the T2 version giving her an EHP of over 40,000. I’m working towards T2 Medium Projectiles currently, they’re a couple weeks away, once they are fit she’ll be prime and will absolutely slice through any 3/10 or 4/10 DED site.

The weekend was pretty full of RL stuff so my play time was limited to Sunday afternoon/evening but I made the best of that time. There was not much going on in the way of Corp/Alliance stuff so I wasn’t able to get Dusky Slug out for her first roam but I did spend some time exploring some new (for me) PvE content.

After getting into Interdictors I lined up some cross-training into Gallente ships and worked my way into their Cruisers which, with my Minmatar skills, opened up the the Angel Cartel’s Cynabal. I had seen a post somewhere with a fit for a High-sec exploration Cynabal and it looked like it would open up some fun content for me so I built one…

Demonic Pygmy is built geared towards exploring Angel space but with a few tweaks (swap the shield hardener and use the appropriate ammo and drones) you could adjust for whatever Pirate Faction you want. I flew her for a few hours through High-sec systems yesterday hitting all the Angel Refuge and Angel DenCosmic Anomalies I could find. I didn’t keep track of the numbers of Refuges or Dens I hit but over the course of my exploring I managed to get five to escalate into Angel’s Red Light Districts and also spawned two Commander Waves with the Domination ship types. Only one of the Red Light District escalations was located in High-sec so that was the only one I ran. It’s a bit of a burly mission more like a Lvl 4+ and I knew I wouldn’t be able to solo it so asked the brother if he was able to lend a hand and he was more than game. Got a nice drop from the Angel Retirement Home, a Gistum B-Type 10MN Microwarpdrive and snagged a Mid-grade Halo Delta from one of the Domination Commanders.

With the Core Probe launcher I was also able to scan down some DED sites and ran a couple of them over the course of the explore as well. Truly enjoyed the ‘different’ PvE content, it’s a nice change up from grinding Agent Missions and I’m stoked to head out for some more!

Null-Sec roams can either be feast or famine and last night it was more on the famine side.

I was a little late getting on but did manage to catch up to the small Fleet that Fifth was taking out in my Wolf. We didn’t really have a destination or route in place, we roamed all over, our scout was checking the Star Map looking for any Systems that had pilots in them and looking at their Military and Industrial indices which dictated what we would be hitting when we got in System.

We were out for a few hours and in that time managed to catch one Cynabal. We hit WW-OVQ hard, all jumping in at the same time and dispersing to different Anomalies looking for any of the few Neutrals that were in System and Fifth just happened to get Scram on Zudalian’s Cynabal in one of the belts of all places. Once we each got out of warp to our sites we immediately turned around and warped to Fifth. As soon as we were all on grid the Cynabal went down quickly. GF’s were thrown out in local and we continued on our merry roaming way.

A few jumps later we hit RO-AIQ the same way. There was a bunch of Neutrals in System and a ton of ORE ships on D-scan so we each hit a different belt and crossed our fingers. Fifth was the closest to catching something, he saw the group of Mackinaws warping out to Safes as he was finishing his warp. We checked a few more belts trying to catch an unaware straggler but there was no joy so we decided to start burning towards home.

The thing I should mention at this point is that the QY2Y-N gate in RO-AIQ is heavily bubbled, there is 50-75km of bubbles surrounding the gate, and just as we were heading back to it we got a +1 in System. Again Fifth was the first to make contact this time though the match-up was not ideal, our new Neutral was Parasels piloting a Proteus, and when I landed on grid it was all but over for Fifth but I said “Banzai!” and went after him anyway.

In the Norse mythology Einherji are the fallen warriors who are brought by the Valkyries to the Halls of Valhalla who then eat, drink and prepare for Ragnarök. Well… in EVE Einherji are some nasty little buggers and they pretty much wrecked our entire fleet! There was a pilot in a Nyx out in System somewhere and via Parasels he unleashed his Einherji on us – them Fighters are brutal – the Wolf and I went down fast and I woke up in Hek.

At the end of the day the trade wasn’t terrible, a Wolf and Pod for a Cynabal, we had some good fun BS’ing as we roamed, and as has been said numerous times before… “This is EVE ~ Shipwrecks happen!“